Benchmarking Signorini and exponential contact laws for an industrial train brake squeal application

Abstract

Contact representation of structure interactions for finite element models is nowadays of great interest in the industry. Two contact modellig strategies exist in the literature, either based on a perfect contact with no interpenetration of structures at contact points, or based on functional laws releasing the contact constraint through pressure-penetration relationships. Both strategies require very different and rarely documented numerical implementations, making difficult any objective comparison. This paper presents a benchmark between ideal contact and a functional law of the exponential type applied to squeal simulations by complex mode analysis of an industrial railway brake.